Lenovo looks to Olympics boost despite controversy
BEIJING—The chairman of Olympic sponsor Lenovo said Thursday its marketing should not be affected by controversy surrounding the games and expressed confidence the link will boost the Chinese computer maker's brand abroad.
Sponsors including General Electric, Coca Cola and Lenovo that spent tens of millions of dollars to link their brands to the Olympics have seen the marketing picture clouded by complaints about issues ranging from China's human rights record to controls on Internet use during the Aug. 8-24 games.
"We have seen the reports in Western media. For Lenovo, as an Olympic sponsor, this will not have any effect on us," chairman Yang Yuanqing told reporters after an opening ceremony for the company's pavilion on the Olympic green.
"We want to see the top athletes come here to compete. I think this goal will finally be achieved. We can't comment on other things such as political issues," Yang said.
Other sponsors have tried to mollify activists who are pushing for change on Tibet or other issues without angering the communist Beijing government.
Lenovo is the only Chinese company among the International Olympic Committee's 12 top-tier sponsors. The Beijing-based company acquired IBM Corp.'s PC unit in 2005 and is hoping its link to the games will help its efforts to become a global brand name.
"We've seen significant improvement in the past three or four years" in recognition of Lenovo's brand abroad, Yang said.
"Of course, this is closely related to our acquisition of IBM's global PC business as well as our global marketing activities such as the Olympic sponsorship," he said. "I hope that with this global marketing campaign during the Olympics, we will make more progress in this."
Lenovo is planning Olympics-related television advertising campaigns in the United States, Australia and India and will be running Internet advertisements in Europe, according to Alice Li, the company's vice president for Olympic marketing.
Lenovo also has signed up more than 100 athletes to write blogs during the games, she said.
Lenovo is supplying 30,000 servers, personal computers and other pieces of equipment for the games and is sending 580 engineers to maintain it.
The company has run some 40 test events and rehearsals for the games, said Chen Xiaopeng, its senior vice president for China.
"We have done fantastically," he said.
Also Thursday, Yang showed off a new wireless Lenovo device dubbed the Beacon that attaches to a digital camera and allows users to post pictures directly to the Web. Yang said it would be available for some news photographers to test during the games.
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